Gentle touch: Babies love and crave touch, as well as your attention. So snuggling with your little one, holding them gently, engaging in skin-to-skin contact, caressing their face, holding their hands, or touching their toes are all beautiful ways to bond.
According to UK researcher Dr. Alan Slater, babies prefer to look at attractive faces, just like adults. In a study he conducted at the University of Exeter, Dr. Slater and his colleagues took photos of various female faces and asked people to rate them for attractiveness, scoring them on a scale from 1 to 5.
Play mirrors, high-contrast flashcards, colorful rattles and textured, cloth activity books are all standout examples of newborn toys that'll stimulate your little one's senses. Better yet, these toys promote baby's fine motor skills, social abilities, pattern recognition and visual development.
Connect with your baby and play with them. If you're having fun with your baby, they're having fun. Play creates joy, but play is also how your child develops skills essential to future happiness.
The sound of your voice
They associate them with warmth, food, and comfort. Babies like high-pitched voices in general—a fact that most adults seem to understand intuitively and respond to accordingly, without even realizing it. Listen to yourself the next time you talk to your baby.
White noise should be used during your baby's bedtime routine, throughout their naps and night sleeps, and whenever you need help to calm crying. When you use a white noise machine to help stop crying, make sure it's turned up just as loud as your little one's wails.
White noise is a key tool in the Happiest Baby sleep approach. It helps turn on your baby's calming reflex, or their built-in “reset button” to calm crying and bring on sleep. The best sound for calming fussing is a rough, slightly harsh noise that's as loud as your little one's crying.
You're one of your baby's favorite companions and their first teacher. That said, you don't need to interact with and entertain your baby during every waking moment. Babies need time on their own, too, so they can gradually start to understand that they're independent from you.
Smiles: Babies who are well nourished and tenderly cared for will grin, smile, and light up for their special caregivers. Appetite: If he feels relaxed and comfortable and plays vigorously with crib or floor toys, your baby will nurse and eat with pleasure. Voice: Happy babies vocalize a lot. They squeal.
Make faces, smile, laugh, roll your eyes or poke out your tongue. Your baby loves watching your face and playing peekaboo games. Nappy-changing is a great time for face-to-face play. Give your baby different objects to feel – soft toys, rattles or cloth books with pages of different textures are fun.
Soft blocks, squishy toys, soothing stuffed animals, rattles and teethers are perfect items for them to grab. A security blanket will help soothe them and make them feel comfortable. Cloth books help your child explore new images and different colors. Musical bugs activate songs to stimulate your child.
From birth to four months
In the first few months, babies demonstrate a keen interest in the primary colours of red, green and blue, which is why they prefer pictures and toys in these colours. Bright colours help the child to develop their visual capacity. Having said this, babies favour shades of red above all.
Newborns have a much more sensitive sense of smell, so stick with fragrance-free products until she's old enough for scented ones. Otherwise, the fragrances could make her even fussier. There are several possibilities, but the most effective smells tend to be lavender, vanilla, chamomile and rose.
Babies just love songs, rhythms and music and, like children and adults, greatly benefit from a musical environment. However, scientists have found that the effect music has on the young minds of babies is far more significant that one would imagine.
Your baby will give you little clues that they're bored, such as yawning, looking away, squirming, and crying.
According to Dr. Frans Plooij, one of the world's top specialists in infant development and parent-baby interactions (as well as author of the brilliant book, The Wonder Weeks), babies can experience boredom. Many babies clearly communicate when they are bored. They cry and exhibit restlessness.
1-3 Months
The first three months with your baby often seem the hardest.
They talk to you.
Your baby's very earliest coos will be directed at you or another trusted caregiver – it's their way of saying, “love you too!” By four months, babies will make sounds in response to your voice and turn their head to try to find you when you're talking.
It can start as early as 4 or 5 months old. However, more typically, it occurs around 9 months old, says the AAP. By around 8 months, your infant begins to readily distinguish between people, and they form strong emotional attachments to their caregivers.
If you keep white noise at a safe level and at a safe distance from your baby's ears, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Of course, it should go without saying that you not blast your white noise machine at max volume right next to your little one's head all night long.
Parents around the world have invented all kinds of variations on the calming womb-like sensations that I've dubbed the 5 S's: Swaddle, Side-Stomach Position, Shush, Swing, and Suck. Here's what each of the 5 S's are, what they do, and how to use them to calm and comfort your little one.
White noise can help to mask those sounds, because it contains all frequencies at an equal intensity. Using white noise means the baby can stay asleep longer and caregivers don't have to stress so much about keeping the bigger little ones quiet.